The Unilab 3 Sails On........

Old Groaner had a fabulous Blip today, about an old, derelict boat that had broken loose from it's moorings and washed ashore.  It immediately reminded me of the boat I grew up on.
      My Blip today is the Unilab 3.   My parents bought it brand new, off of the production line.   It was loaded onto a truck in Ohio and trucked to Essex, Connecticut.  The last of the boat was completed....   The windshield on the flybridge was installed and the mast in front of it was also installed.
    Then, the straps were were placed around the hull at the strongs points, it was gently lifted off the truck and then  rolled out over the water, then lowered the Unilab into the Connecticut River.   She (all boats are called a lady) floated and began her life.
     I had many wonderful years on that boat with my family and outstanding memories.....   The New York World's Fair, traveling to Cape Cod, or to Vermont and then Canada,  summers of fun, sailing, swimming, and hurricanes.  That boat was a part of my life right up until I went away to college.
     During that time my dad developed a heart condition that  require earliest open heart surgeries in Boston, Mass.   He recovered well, but my parents decided that it was time I learned how to navigate and plot courses by compass, dock the boat in all conditions, how to handle rough water in 6ft seas.   My dad and I grew very close over those teenage years.
      When I graduated from high school, my parents decided to sell the Unilab, as they weren't secure going about boating without help and assistance.    The year I came home from my 1st year of college,  they told me that the Unilab had burned up at a winter storage building.   The boat had been hauled out for winter storage (the river freezes over and would crush even the Unilab from the ice pressures).    
         During storage, there was an electrical short somewheres inside.    All of the boats in storage burned to the ground.  The boats are stored  with full tanks of gas making it a very hot fire that burned everything to  ash.
         The blip today, is a painting of the boat.  It was painted by an artist/friend that lived near us.  I have brought the painting to Florida and keep it up on the wall.  Whenever I look at it, I spend moments reminiscing  about all the wonderful times we had, the places We went and saw, and the times with my father as I crawled through the bilge of the boat and checked engine oils, stuffing box checks, batteries, water levels and the laughs my dad and I had together.

Thank you, OldGroaner, for causing me to thinking once again, of all the  wonderful time gone by,  and all the memories.....